


softly; because we are screaming

by KelpietheThundergod



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Can be read as gen, Coda, Episode: s12e13 Family Feud, Episode: s12e14 The Raid, Gen, M/M, Post Episode s12e14 The Raid, Season/Series 12, episode coda, implied panic attack, implied selectively mute!Dean, kind of Hurt/Comfort but not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-04
Updated: 2017-03-04
Packaged: 2018-09-28 08:29:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10081478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KelpietheThundergod/pseuds/KelpietheThundergod
Summary: He'd tried, all through dinner. Fuck, did he try. They're a family and families eat together. But the food just didn't wanna go down. As if there were still words locked in his throat, words of hurt and accusation, and they were in the way. The more he tried to get past them, the harder it got to talk. Like his insides were torn between heaving it all up and keeping everything inside.





	

 

_gently_

_because we want you hearing_

 

“ _I_

_never was”_

 

 

 

Dean sits on his bed.

Usually, with shit like this happening, he'd want to move. Stress clean, buy groceries, go for a drive. Instead, he sits, a lead weight in his stomach keeping him in place. Guilt, but not. There's an edge of sadness to it that is making his throat hurt, that has him try and find comfort in his room, his one and only safe space. Disappointment, then. But worse.

He's disappointed with himself.

Dean's been trying not to feel that way. _Really_ , fuck, all the way back home he's been trying so hard—he had to forgive Ma-his _mom_ , she was right and he was. Was not. He shouldn't feel disappointed with himself that he'd apologized. She's their mom and that's more important than how Dean's stupid fragile feelings were hurt. Except, every time he repeats that to himself the lead weight gets heavier.

He'd tried, all through dinner. _Fuck_ , did he try. They're a family and families eat together. But the food just didn't wanna go down. As if there were still words locked in his throat, words of hurt and accusation, and they were in the way. The more he tried to get past them, the harder it got to talk. Like his insides were torn between heaving it all up and keeping everything inside. He'd played it off as just being tired, and Sam and their mom had shared that _look_. Like they were bonding over their mutual exasperation over Dean's juvenile avoidance strategies. Plotting behind his back over how they're gonna work to make Dean more civilized, make him see _reason_.

Like planning to take out entire species is fucking _civilized_ behavior.

And now he's being unfair. But still. Or, hell, maybe Dean's just plain wrong about this and they're right. Somehow. At least that'd fit the pattern.

Dean puts his face in his hands. Rubs his temples, swallows his spit. His throat feels stuffed.

There's light on in his room and his door is closed and the sheets he's sitting on are fresh and soft. Sometimes, concentrating on these things helps a bit. Dean focuses on breathing slow and into his stomach. He kind of wishes Cas were here. Talking doesn't help shit when you're not heard.

The photo of him and his mom is still locked away in his desk. If she knows he's got it, and then happens to see it's not there anymore, she's gonna be sad. Maybe it makes him a shit son, but the thought of looking at it right now makes Dean want to curl in on himself. It'd feel like he's helping her lie to herself. She wants to be their mom without being their _mom_.

No. Fuck, he's being unfair again.

Dean breathes out roughly through his nose. Curls his hands into fists, squeezes. Uncurls them.

He needs to let this go. But where the fuck is he supposed to put it? What is he—

There's a buzzing against Dean's leg. His phone, vibrating with an incoming call. He fumbles it out of his jeans' pocket with clumsy fingers, half hoping and half not hoping that it's Cas, because Cas'd ask how Dean is, and Dean is still kind of figuring out how to say he's not okay—Dean stares at his phone screen.

It's... Crowley?

Dean swipes his finger over the screen, tries to sound gruff and in control when he says, “Yeah?”

No answer.

Dean checks to see if it's disconnected but it's not. He holds the phone to his ear again. Faintly, he can make out vague sounds. Rustling of fabric, what sounds like voices from a TV. The clinking of a glass.

Did Crowley freaking... butt-dial him?

“Crowley... ? _Hey_!”

There's more rustling, and then “What in the bloody _hell_ do you want.” It's said flatly, and Crowley's voice sounds so wrecked that Dean changes his assertion to drunk-dialing. But Crowley's all powered up again, can he even get drunk?

“The hell do _I_ want? You called _me_!”

Why is he even still talking to the guy?

Crowley snorts.

“ _You_ are about the _last_ person I want to talk to right now. Except if, maybe, you are plotting with my dear _mother_ again, in which case you can let her know that her little eye for an eye spiel means she is _dead_ to me.”

Crowley's words slur together slightly but his voice is dripping with acid and hurt. Dean expects him to hang up after that but he doesn't. Also, “The fuck are you talking about eye for an eye?”

There's more rustling, and Crowley hissing, “Don't play dumb with me. We killed mother's little _lamb_ for the sake of the ritual that freed _your_ ass from the bloody Mark of Cain—”

“Dude, _seriously_. The fuck are you talking about?” Dean doesn't know, but he's got a suspicion that has his heart picking up speed again in distress.

It's quiet on the other end, and then there's a chuckle that's entirely devoid of humor. “Ah yes, your brother, the king of the double standards. Of course he'd _conveniently_ forget to mention the innocent blood he's spilled to get what he wants.”

Dean's heart misses a beat. He feels cold all over.

Crowley plows on. “I'd feel bad for you, but then again, you did just help my two-faced _harpy_ of a mother to send my _only son_ to his _death_ behind my back, so—”

Dean stares at his feet on the floor. He's still got his boots on, the floors are cold. He breathes. Doesn't say anything, because yeah, he gets it. In Crowley's place, he'd be mad too.

Finally, except for the faint noises of the TV, there's silence. They're both silent. Neither of them hang up.

Dean lets out his breath in a rush. “I'm sorry. Okay? I'm sorry how the fucking thing went down.” Silence. Dean licks his lips, shifts on the bed. His back hurts with how rigidly he's been holding himself in place. “For what it's worth,” he adds, “They were together in the end. From what it looked like... he was happy.”

There's a sniffling sound on the other end that Dean doesn't mention he can hear over what sounds like Spanish and—Jesus, is Crowley watching an old episode of _Eva la trailera_?

“So—yeah,” Dean flounders, awkwardly. “Good, uh, good talk.”

He's about to hang up when he hears, faintly, “Why're you doin' this, Squirrel?”

Man, Crowley sounds trashed. But there's something sharp to his words as well, something knowing. Or weary, maybe. Like Crowley wants to know, but hates that he wants to know. Huh.

Before Dean can come up with an answer—or rather, a deflection, because he doesn't really know why he's doing this or what he's even doing—Crowley continues, sounding like he's more talking to himself or the TV than Dean.

“Can't imagine you getting it. Bet that tiger mommy of yours would never—” He cuts himself off, and then there's the sound of liquid sloshing in a glass. A swallow, and a hiss. Dean really doesn't want to know what Crowley's drinking. “Whatever.”

Dean rubs a hand over his thigh, curls his fingers over his knee, digs in hard enough that it almost hurts. He's sitting with his back to his desk, eyes to the wall. “Yeah,” he's saying before he knows it, voice raw as if not a single word had made it past his throat the entire five or so minutes they've been talking, “that's what I thought too.”

It comes out brittle. Dean closes his eyes, clenches his teeth, like that'll force the fragility back inside, where no one can lay soft hands on it and then bend it till it breaks.

“Huh... you going to listen to your own advice, then?” Crowley sounds bored, like he couldn't care less. And yet he's asking, waiting for a reply.

Dean leans his elbows on his knees, rubs over his eyes with his free hand. He's so tired.

“What advice?” He grits out.

Crowley sighs in his ear, the noise static-y and too loud, making Dean wince. “C'mon Winchester— _family cares about you or they're not family_ , blah blah blah? Would have thought that was like, your _catch phrase._ ”

Dean doesn't know what to say to that, so he says nothing.

He knows Mary loves them.

He knows loving someone is not an excuse.

There's a sound like a snore, followed by more rustling. Beeping starts in Dean's ear a moment later. The line is disconnected.

Apparently, Crowley just passed out on him.

Dean stares at his phone like a dumbass for a moment, then ends the call, throws his phone down behind himself on the bed.

Jesus, that. That was fricken weird.

He feels like getting up and showering now, to try and wash that weirdness off him. Instead, he sits for a moment longer. Looks at his hands in his lap, curled around nothing.

Listen to his own advice, huh?

He's scared for his mom. Scared she'll keep walking and leave him behind when he tells her again he won't follow in the direction she's going. She _and_ Sam are going, working on convincing him to do the same, even if they won't admit it.

Dean breathes through his nose. Just because you love someone doesn't mean you can go and screw up their life. He'd meant that when he said it, a whole lifetime ago.

When he finally pushes himself off the bed, it hurts—his muscles have gotten stiff and he feels cold and uncomfortable and like's he's been fighting wounded for hours. Nothing he's not used to. When he swallows, that stuffed up feeling is still there. But the strangle is less.

Carefully, he puts his phone on his nightstand. Just... just in case Cas calls or texts him. Or maybe Dean will have the courage to text or call him himself. To let out some more of those words that he's been pushing down and pushing down for the sake of—well, certainly not himself.

For now, he digs out something nice to sleep in, walks past his desk, heads to the showers. He deserves something comforting and warm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Eva la trailera is an American telenovela that aired on Telemundo in 2016
> 
> Find me on tumblr at [cuddlemonsterdean](http://cuddlemonsterdean.tumblr.com/)


End file.
